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Friday, November 16, 2018

Let the sun shine in!

As I drove home from work tonight I was thinking how dark it
was at 5:30pm – I’d been inside all day.
I hadn’t seen much sun. To make matters worse, my drive home that
normally takes 15 – 20 minutes took 40.
It’s the first big snow of the year and much to my dismay, 4 hours later
it’s still snowing. Many love the first blanket
of snow. Those that love it are probably
not the ones driving home during rush hour where everyone has forgotten how to
drive, and the cloud cover was heavy making it particularly dark. Tonight I was lucky. The car behind me, not so much. I witnessed a car slide into them from my
rear-view mirror. As I was watching, I
moved forward to avoid being the 3rd vehicle in a chain reaction.

Why the talk about doom and gloom?Well, according to researchers
from the University of Oregon in dark rooms more bacteria was found
to be alive and able to reproduce (e.g. viable and potentially infectious) as
compared to rooms that were exposed to sunlight or even UV light.Let’s be honest.Many of us spend an inordinate amount of time
indoors, particularly in the colder months.The more time we spend indoors, the more time we are exposed to dust
particles trapped inside with us and the bacteria that may be hiding in the
dust.

The researchers found that dust that was kept in the dark
contained microbes that were closely related to species associated with
respiratory diseases and that these microbes were absent in dust exposed to
daylight. They also found that a larger proportion of the bacteria found were
outdoor air-derived bacteria, indicating that the microbiome of indoor dust
exposed to daylight makes it resemble bacterial communities found in the great
outdoors.

The study would suggest that the long held belief that sun
is good for our health is true. Contemplating the design of
buildings such as schools, offices, hospitals and homes in a way to allow as
much natural light coming in as possible may reduce the risk of dust-borne
infections. It also highlights the importance for routine cleaning and
disinfection. As we now know that dust carries infectious pathogens and that
the darker the space the more concentrated the bacteria is, we may want to
rethink our cleaning programs as well.Do we need to increase the frequency of dusting areas that we may touch
on only a weekly or even monthly basis?As the dust accumulates so too does the concentration of pathogens.Air movement can move the dust which may lead
to transmission of infections.